Bermuda's domestic partnership act 2018: From "living tree" to broken branches?

Johnson, Marc

Abstract

It is often thought that affording rights is a progressive movement; rights are given to natural legal persons; the rights are normalised in societal expectations and they form part of a body of enforceable rights against the state. On 7 February 2018, Bermuda became the first state in modern history to withdraw the right of same-sex couples to marry, bucking the trend of progressively affording rights. In a recent judgment, the Bermudian Supreme Court has ruled that taking away the right of same-sex couples to marry is unconstitutional. This article will briefly consider the development of the right of same-sex couples to marry in Bermuda, the connection between Bermudian human rights law and the European Convention on Human Rights and ask whether rights afforded under a constitutional arrangement can be taken away.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 8, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Jan 3, 2019
• Publication Date: Jan 8, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jun 24, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 27, 2022
• Journal: European Human Rights Law Review
• Print ISSN: 1361-1526
• Publisher: Sweet and Maxwell
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 367-382
• Series ISSN: ISSN 1361-1526
• Keywords: Same-sex Marriage, Constitutional Law, Bermuda, Living Tree
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9659204
• Publisher URL: https://www.sweetandmaxwell.co.uk/Product/Human-Rights/European-Human-Rights-Law-Review/Journal/30791306